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Temple Football Says it Did NOT Decline Bowl Invite
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There’s been a rash of declined bowl invites in the wake of the College Football Playoff announcement, with teams like Notre Dame, Iowa State, and Kansas State deciding that their seasons are over.
It’s opened the door for some non-bowl eligible teams to take these spots, and they are reportedly declining as well:
Temple? But wait! There’s a plot twist. The Owls say they didn’t turn down the bowl:
What say you? Obviously when you finish 5-7 and you’re not bowl eligible, you call it a season and move on. You’ve got signing day, transfer portal, holiday break for the student-athletes and all of that. It’s not as easy as just making a phone call or two and then you’ve got the entire team back on the practice field and preparing for Georgia Southern on December 29th.
So that’s one half of it, trying to get the logistics sorted on short notice. You also have to deal with player opt outs even if you decide you are going to play the game.
The other half is that Temple can use all of the practice time and game time that’s out there. Going down there to play GSU would have been beneficial. Chance to get to six wins and play a neutral site game and just log more experience.
But you’re seeing for a lot of these college football programs that low-level bowl games just don’t mean much anymore.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com